1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to novel paneling or flooring strips and to a method for manufacturing these paneling or flooring strips, and more particularly to paneling or flooring strips constructed from used cask staves used to age liquor, such as wine, whiskey and other spirits.
2. Prior Art
With environmental concerns at the forefront many attempts are being made to recycle various products. One such product is the cask used to age wines, whiskeys and other spirits. Each year a hundred thousand or more of such casks reach the end of their useful life and are discarded. Attempts to find uses for these discarded wine and whiskey casks are being driven not only by environmental concerns, but also economic interests. These casks are typically constructed from premium clear French and American oak, most often taken from mature, old-growth trees, many of which are 100 to 150 years old. Environmentally, it would be very desirable to find new uses for these discarded casks. Economically, the costs of such premium wood makes it highly desirable to re-coup as much salvage value as possible when the cask can no longer be used to age wine, whiskey or other spirits.
Oak is by far the most used wood in the construction of these casks. However, of the hundreds of oak species, there are only three species used in the production of a substantial majority of the wine and whiskey casks: Quercus Alba, Quercus Petraea, and Quercus Robur. These particular species are utilized because of their unique physical and chemical nature. They possess physical strength due to their wide radial ray, tightness of their rings, as well as do not possess resin canals (such as pine or rubber trees) that can impart undesirable flavors to the wine or whiskey. Still further, as a result of the seasoning and heating treatments common during the coppering process, these oaks will produce from the hemicellulose, lignin, oak tannins and oak lactones making up the oak: wood sugars that add body to the wine or whiskey; toasty and caramelized aromas and flavors; color; sweet, smoky and spice aromas; other delicate fragrances; as well as woody and coconut characters. The individual staves are manufactured by first stripping the bark from the oak log and then quarter splitting or quarter sawing the oak log. The staves are next dried, generally by kiln drying, or more preferably by air drying. The dried staves are arranged inside a metal hoop and then heated in stages (warming up or pre-chauffrage, shaping or cintrage, and toasting or bousinage) to achieve the desired bent shape to form the cask. An example of a typical finished barrel is illustrated in FIG. 1. Cask sizes can vary, but casks used in the aging of wine, whiskey and other spirits typically hold 50-132 gallons. Depending on the cask size, the cask or barrique may also be referred to as a barrel, a hogshead, or a butt. As used herein, “cask” is used generically to refer to all sizes.
In addition to impart desirable wine making characteristics, the oak cask staves must be constructed to handle the load of the wine when the casks are stacked in storage during the aging process. During the aging process, the wine obtains a suitable amount of oxygen through the pores of the oak to aid in the maturing of the wine and to extract any tannin from the oak staves aid in obtaining the desired taste. For this reason the thickness of oak staves is limited in order to permit adequate oxygen passage through the wood pores to the wine. However, over time the amount of tannin received by the wine from inside of the wood pores is detrimentally decreased eventually requiring replacement of the casks. To prolong the current life of a cask they are generally re-used. This is achieved by scrapping or shaving (with and without toasting of the cask) the interior of the cask to expose non-wine, whiskey or other spirit impregnated oak to the wine, whiskey or other spirit to permit continued flavoring or conditioning of wine or whiskey. However, even with this re-conditioning, traditional oak casks are generally used only about 2 or 3 times before they require replacement.
Because of the coloration and condition of the inner layer of the stave due to up to 30 years of contact and chemical interaction with the wine, whiskey or other spirit, dehydrated wine residue or wine-stone from the aging process in a discarded wine cask, there has been little demand for these discarded casks. The most common use of discarded wine and whiskey casks is to saw them in half and use the top and bottom halves as wooden planters for flowers and small shrubs. Such use generally permits recovering of no more than about 1%-2% of the original cost of the cask.
More recently, companies have begun offering for sale furniture made from recovered staves. In addition one company now offers flooring strips made from wine cask staves. In this case the wine cask staves are straightened by a non-disclosed proprietary process, the stained layer of each straightened stave is then milled away to produce a flooring strip of desired thickness. When the strip is used as flooring the milled surface is affixed to the sub flooring with the non-stained layer of the staves exposed for foot traffic. Because of the process needed to convert the staves to useful flooring strips is expensive, such converted staves can not effectively compete against conventional oak flooring strips. To overcome this marketing disadvantage these strips are touted for the logos and winery identification markings found on the non-stained exterior surface of the cask. However, because only a few of the staves on each cask have such markings, either the flooring must have a limited number of such markings or a large number of staves must be treated to obtain the desirable strips. These flooring strips have met with only limited commercial success. Therefore, there is still a need in the wine and spirits industry to find other ways to use the discarded casks that also permit larger recovery of the initial cask costs.